The Holy Bible Was Almost Ported To The Game Boy Advance

Video game ports don’t always work as intended. You’d think it would be easier to run a game on a more powerful device, but the recent fiasco with the PC port for The Last of Us Part 1 showed us that it’s not that simple. Sometimes, ports are impossible due to the very nature of the device a game was created for. However, that didn’t stop Crave Entertainment from trying to put The Holy Bible on the Game Boy Advance.

The Bible has an interesting history when it comes to the platforms it was released on. It was launched as a manuscript first, and later remastered to print. Perhaps this was the first remaster in history. Eventually, the Bible found its way to most modern devices, but somewhere along the way it also came to the Game Boy Advance.

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Unfortunately, it never officially launched as a “game”, and was eventually cancelled. However, Nintendo preservationist, Forest of Illusion, has managed to secure a prototype for The Holy Bible cartridge for the Game Boy Advance. As for what it is, it’s just the text of the Bible with a scrolling feature. I don’t mean to be blasphemous, but perhaps canceling it was the right call, as it wasn’t likely to work with the general target audience of the GBA.

“The following is a cancelled version of The Holy Bible for the Game Boy Advance, developed by Rainbow Missions and originally set to be published by Crave Entertainment in the US,” says the description on the website. “It seemingly came very close to a release, with box art being created alongside a description from European publisher 505 Games’s website. It was silently cancelled for unknown reasons.”

This wasn’t the only time that Crave Entertainment tried to put out a game about the Bible. In 2005, the company published The Bible Game, which was a party game that featured trivia based on the old Testaments. It was later ported to PlayStation 2 and Xbox as well, with average to below-average reviews.

window.arrayOfEmbeds[“1645280240502214656”] = {‘twitter’ : ‘"n<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">We've preserved a cancelled version of The Holy Bible for the Game Boy Advance, developed by Rainbow Missions and originally set to be published by Crave Entertainment! It came very close to a release, with even boxart being created. Unfortunately it never ended up releasing. <a href="https://t.co/VE10mqLNNi">pic.twitter.com/VE10mqLNNi</a>n&mdash; Forest of Illusion (@forestillusion) <a href="https://twitter.com/forestillusion/status/1645280240502214656?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 10, 2023</a></blockquote>nn"’}; window.arrayOfEmbedScripts[“twitter”] = “"<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>"”;

While there’s no way to get a cartridge for The Holy Bible, you can download it to read via an emulator, thanks to the preservationist website’s efforts. Of course, given the nature of the game, the comments on the Tweet by Forest of Illusion were quite hilarious.

“It starts off easy, there’s like a tutorial area that’s set in a garden. Then there’s like a snake boss and it gets a lot harder. The end level is really difficult. It’s like Armageddon or something,” said Luke Syred, who clearly needs to git gud.

In terms of more recent ports, The Last of Us Part 1 PC port has officially been deemed ‘Unsupported’ on the Steam Deck thanks to the buggy launch. Despite a hotfix, the game still remains broken, prompting fans to take things into their own hands.

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